


Decent into Chaos

by Babykitsune9



Category: Bleach, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Female Kurosaki Ichigo, Mute Ichigo, Powerful Kurosaki Ichigo, Protective Daryl Dixon, Protective Rick, Shane Being an Asshole, Smart Kurosaki Ichigo, Young Kurosaki Ichigo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:15:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25322239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babykitsune9/pseuds/Babykitsune9
Summary: This was un-frigging-believable. Truly it was.The world was finally ending, and here she was stuck half a world away in the boonies no less. Oh well, she could still do her part to help people survive.Or at least that's what she told herself as she set out to do her damned job. No pairing yet. Fem Ichigo.
Relationships: Ichigo kurosaki/Rick Grimes, Ichigo kurosaki/daryl dixon
Comments: 1
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

_Sophia, stay here. We will come back everyday._

Sharp neon blue eyes peered down at the writing on the dirty car's windshield for a moment before skimming it in lieu of checking out the stuff left behind. Bottled waters, a large gatorade, some canned foods and a can opener.

Huffing quietly, she let her eyes drift around the scattered vehicles lining the highway then back to the camper and a few other vehicles where she could literally feel the wary yet curious gazes of others boring into her.

She supposed that she couldn't blame them any.

After all between her torn and blood stained clothing, the large parka that she was wearing to protect her from suffering from a serious case of sun burn underneath the sweltering Georgian sun- and the hood pulled up over her head, hiding her features- she must look like a real _creeper_ to them.

_A real frigging freak_. She thought to herself with a slight quirk of her pale lips as she scanned the small note again and then sighed and slipped the pack that she was carrying on her from her shoulder and set it down next to the canned food and dug out a few extra provisions just in case...Sophia needed them once she was found.

She set a few protein bars down, a couple of extra bottled waters, and a small first aid kit down next to the rest of the stuff and took a moment to check the kit and make sure that it was equipped with pain meds, antibiotics, alcohol swabs, unused syringes, anti venoms for snakes and spiders, as well as some stuff to _stop_ excessive bleeding.

She dug out some extra bandages and stuff too and stuffed them inside of the kit and then sighed again as she shut it. And slipped it over by the canned foods and used a finger to write out, _Sophia, if you come by and you're hurt...there's a first aid kit for you to use. It has princess band aids and everything. Just... Hang on, okay._

She didn't bother signing her name since whoever Sophia was didn't know her any. But she did sign her little dirt note with her Soul Reaper code name, _Guardian_. Though she was fairly certain that Sophia likely wouldn't care much about who she was any.

So once she finished up repacking some of the stuff that she'd pulled out to restock the first aid kit and give whoever Sophia was some extra food- she pulled the pack back up onto her shoulder and then started to leave when one of her observers decided to finally show himself.

"Wait!" He called out as she started to move away from the car. She paused for a moment and turned her head to look at him.

He was an elderly man. Probably in his sixties or so from the looks of him. He wasn't very tall, or well built. In fact he looked almost... _fragile_ to her. But then most people usually did given how insanely durable and just plain _unkillable_ she was compared to pretty much everyone else.

"W-Wait please." The man said as he nearly doubled over wheezing. She had to resist the urge to reach out and grasp his arm and move him to sit down somewhere. However she was just a little bit puzzled by the fact that the poor guy seemed to be so winded by...three steps, and ten feet?

What the hell? She wondered to herself as the old man took a moment to catch his breath and then scanned the stuff that she'd decided to leave behind along with her portion of the small note in the dirt underneath someone- maybe one of his groups- own and frowned a little bit until he saw what she'd signed her note with.

"Guardian? Is that what you call yourself?" She didn't answer him verbally. But she did tilt her head a little bit in an inquisitive manner. "And you left some stuff for Sophia too."

He looked like he wanted to tell her thank you but stopped for a moment to rethink his words as he looked her over. Obviously taking note of the blood and stuff on her clothing before then asking her, "Are you injured?"

She didn't bother to confirm nor deny the fact that she was hurt.

She'd had a pretty rough time of things recently and had some bruised ribs, a broken wrist, a fractured collarbone and some really bad gnashes, cuts and a few other things to show for it. Some of which she'd had to set, stitch, and medicate herself for because she hadn't been able to move around much.

It had all hurt like a bitch.

But she'd had far, far worse before so she didn't bother to complain. It wasn't as if she were with anyone who could listen to her bitching anyways.

She felt the old man's hand lightly touch her bruised ribs and held herself perfectly still even as a small hiss of discomfort left her lips. The man flinched a little bit at the sound and quickly pulled his hand away from her side and muttered an apologetic, "Sorry." Before then saying, "W-Would you like to stay here and rest a while? I mean, we aren't much of a group- number wise anyways. Survivors are getting harder and harder to come by nowadays... But I doubt anyone will mind overly much if you sit and rest a bit. Maybe you could even join us once our leader gets back and meets you..."

He sounded both a little bit desperate and hopeful at the same time. And after doing a cursory scan of him, and then the woman and kid that were now standing several feet back behind him, it was easy to see _why_. He wasn't in the best shape to be taking on any undead. Much less anything with a pulse.

The woman could put up a bit of a fight either way since she seemed to be in fair health- but would ultimately get herself _killed_ trying to protect him and the kid.

She took a moment to weigh the pro's and con's before making her decision and then nodded her head curtly. The man smiled at her. Like full on beamed as if she'd just handed him a priceless treasure or something and then motioned for her to follow him back to the others.

"So do you have an actual name that we can call you?" He asked curiously once they reached the others back at the camper. She nodded but couldn't really respond otherwise to tell him. Her throat had been damaged a while back and was still in the process of healing. And on top of that she didn't really know how to do sign language.

So when he looked at her expectantly all she could do to let him know that she couldn't talk was to lift a hand and move the fabric of her parka aside to show him her throat. The scar was no doubt enough to keep him from thinking too badly of her.

Though she _did_ notice the brief flash of concern and then something else- anger maybe? that flitted across his face before he sighed and then said. "I have a note pad if you want to use it to communicate." It was a sweet offer. Really it was.

But with the world falling apart like it was, she didn't exactly have time to sit down and write everybody frigging notes. It took more time than was necessary. And mere seconds could often mean the difference between life and death.

When he received no answer good nor bad from her, he must have caught on to what she was thinking because he merely gave her a small nod of his head in understanding and then said. "Okay, we'll just call you Guard for now. Okay?"

She nodded her head and watched him shuffle over to the woman and the kid and talk to them both for a second before the woman hesitantly walked over and knelt down. "Hi, G-Guard. Um, Dale says that you're injured? Do you mind if I check you?"

She sat there as the woman whom introduced herself to her as Laurie checked her over while her son, Carl, hovered protectively several steps behind his mom.

"Well, you're definitely hurt alright." Laurie said after a few moments of contemplative silence.

"Bruised ribs, a broken wrist- some of those cuts and gnashes look pretty painful too. But at least none of them are infected. Your ribs and wrist are both a problem though. Especially considering that you've been moving around instead of staying still and giving them time to _actually_ heal." She said as she sat back on her heels with a sigh right around the time her son blurted out.

"Are you a boy or a girl?"

Laurie made a weird choking sound and stared at her for a second in mortification before finally turning her head to look at her son, wide eyed and growled out. "Carl!"

"What?" The boy said in a defensive tone as he pointed to her. "It's a legitimate question. Especially since I can't tell one way or another. Can you tell mom?"

Laurie floundered for a moment and looked at her again, this time taking note of various things. She was wearing oversized and baggy clothing to prevent herself from being _immediately_ noticed as a girl. However her lithe and athletic build tended to work against her some.

But while she may not have an over abundance of boob to work with, she wasn't exactly flat either. And tended to bind her chest to seem more boy-ish. Which worked in many cases when coupled with her height.

Her face though...tended to give her away more often than not.

Though she could easily pass for a really pretty boy- she was far too attractive to maintain that belief for very long. All it took was someone intelligent and keen sighted enough to look closer and she would be outed.

"I'm thinking he's a boy." Carl said thoughtfully.

Laurie scoffed at him and muttered, "You just keep thinking that."

The boy grinned at her in a mischievous manner. "What? It would be nice to have a few more guys around, ya know. After all, we have to take care of you girls."

Laurie rolled her eyes and said, "You'll have to forgive my son. He was adopted by a sexist wolf. And said wolf needs to have someone give him a firm _smack_ to the snout to remind him of the manners that his mama worked so hard to drill into his head."

Her shoulders shook a little bit in silent mirth as the old man, Dale? Came clamoring back out of the camper looking somewhat paincked as he called out. "Laurie! T-Dog's fever is getting worse!"

"I'm coming!" She called back as she started to get up to go and help when she felt her wrist snagged by Guard's hand and paused.

He/She pointed to the camper and tilted his/her head in a questioning manner that left her confused for a moment before Carl said, "I think he's asking what's wrong with T-Dog."

"I think you may be right," Laurie said before then tacking on. "He's got an infected cut. He's feverish, nauseous, dizzy-"

"He has the beginnings of blood poisoning." Dale said as he looked at Guardian. "He needs antibiotics _bad_."

Without indicating what her intention was, she stood up and grabbed her bag and headed towards the door of the camper. Vaguely hearing Laurie and Carl calling out to Dale about her broken wrist as she brushed by him and quickly entered the camper before he could stop her.

There were two other people in it, she noted immediately as she moved towards the back.

The camper wasn't as big as some of the luxury campers that she'd seen before. So it was literally a straight shot from the door to the back where she could see two people.

One was a slender woman with grey-white hair in an incredibly short pixie cut. She could hear her sniffling as she moved towards her. And a few inches away, she could see a heavy set dark skinned man lying on the bed.

Pausing for a second just in the door, she wondered if she needed to announce herself when she heard the guy rasp out, "W-Who are you?"

_Well, never mind then._ She thought as the woman twisted around to look at her. Probably expecting Dale or one of the others to be behind her. The two of them looked at each other for a second before the woman was on her feet and starting to open her mouth to scream- which was a _very_ bad idea given the fact that the undead could easily find them all if she did.

So she did the only thing that she could think of to keep the woman quiet...she put her hand over her mouth and made a silent hushing sign by putting her index finger to her mouth to indicate that she needed to be quiet and then slowly moved her hand away from her mouth to test and see if she was going to scream.

She was pleased to see that the woman got the message and stayed quiet as Dale poked his head into the small room. "Carol," He said in a slight wheeze. The woman looked at him anxiously. "Sorry, I didn't get the chance to tell you two about Guardian. I call him Guard for short. But he has meds and stuff and might be able to help T-Dog from getting worse."

The second that her small hand was totally removed from...Carol's? mouth, the woman got a much less anxious look and simply nodded her head in understanding and then shuffled around her to move out of the way.

Once Carol was out of the way, she moved closer to the bed to check the man's injury and damned near jumped out of her skin when he gave her a loopy little smile- because of his deliria- and loudly asked, "Did you come to get me? Cause you must be an angel."

She blinked at him, uncertain how to react to his words since they were just a little bit embarrassing. However because she neither confirmed nor denied being anything remotely angelic, the guy just kept talking. "You're the prettiest little thing that I've ever seen." He said with a small giggle as she cast him a weird look as she reached for the arm that had the dried blood on it.

Once she had the wrapping peeled away and managed to inspect it a little bit, she turned to Dale and motioned for something to write with.

He must have been psychic or something, because he held up a note pad and a pen and gave her a small smile as she rolled her eyes and took the items from him and started to write out a list of instructions. If they could even manage to scrounge around for even half the stuff that she mentioned in her list- then T-Dog would be in much better health in no time.

Once that was done, she scanned it and listed a few alternatives that would work just as well as the original items and then handed the list to the man as she slipped her bag from her shoulder again and then opened it and started to pull out what meds she still had left. While Dale showed the list to the others and they all scrambled to get what she had written down.

Over the next few minutes she managed to clean the wound better than it had already been, and gave the man something for pain as well as to reduce his fever. After that, she gave him some seriously awesome antibiotics that Kisuke had given her a while back, and then took the stuff that the others had managed to scrape together and made something to pull the toxins out of the wound.

Any left over was put into an empty and clean medium sized jar that she had to be used again later.

Just in case.

Once she finished up, she started to clean the small area of anything that needed to be carefully disposed of. Like the syringes that she'd used to administer the meds, the dirty alcohol swabs and stuff.

"You know a bit about treating injuries, huh." Dale's voice caused her to look up from her task for a moment. It wasn't a question. Not really. And yet at the same time it was.

Almost as if he were looking for some kind of confirmation.

She didn't rise to his bait though. It was simpler to let him draw his own conclusions anyways. Besides, it wasn't as if he were wrong. Between her dad and Kisuke's hellish training, she knew far _more_ about medical stuff than she felt her brain could ever contain in a hundred lifetimes.

Thank god she's left home otherwise her head might have actually exploded from the excess knowledge. Still...she couldn't deny that it hadn't been useful to her at present.

_Stupid dad and Kisuke. Stupid hindsight..._ If she could have grumbled about it that would be what she said. However since she couldn't speak- all she could do right then was think it. Really, really _loudly._

Collecting the small pile of used and dirty items, she picked her bag up and shouldered it again and then turned to go and dispose of the stuff and nearly ran into Dale in the process. The blasted man hadn't moved an inch. He just stood there, staring her down as in a weird parody of an intimidating manner.

He was about as intimidating to her as a bunny slipper. And she made sure that he knew it too by staring him down in a similar manner.

He actually squirmed and backed slowly away from the door, and she grinned. _Ha! I win._ She thought as she moved along the camper, brushing by the old man as she made her way back outside. Not a moment too soon either. She could hear a bunch of people bickering and crap as they made their way out of the darkening woods.

There were four men, and one very upset looking blond woman.

The men noticed her right away, even from the slight distance. Whereas the woman was so upset that she probably had trouble seeing straight, so she wound up walking right by her without noticing her at all.

She watched the woman walk right by her and heard Dale asking her what was wrong as the men finally reached the rest of them and eyed her warily.

"Who the hell is this?" One guy asked in a southern drawl. He didn't sound nice at all. And she got a dark feeling from him that made her skin crawl while the other three men just looked at her oddly as Carl came running up to them.

"Dad, Shane, Glenn, Daryl! That's Guard- he's new! Dale found him walking along the highway. He started to walk on by after he left some stuff for Sophia after he saw the note on the car window!" The boy said excitedly as the person that she assumed was the boy's dad knelt down and wrapped his arms around him and hugged him while the others took turns ruffling his hair.

"Is that so?" The man holding the boy asked, his tone a little bit curious and wary at the same time. Carl nodded his head enthusiastically and then pointed to the extra stuff that had been laid out along with the canned food that they had put out for Sophia.

The three men checked out the new stuff that had been added to their own, and seemed to take a special interest in the first aid kit and the little note that she'd left behind.

She got a weird sinking feeling right about then as they turned to look at her again.

"You left this stuff?" One guy, the one with a heavy accent and the crossbow asked.

"Guardian?" Carl's dad said with a small frown as he curiously opened the first aid kit and started to go through it as the other guys shuffled a little bit closer to him so that they could see what all had been left out for the little girl that they'd lost.

"Jesus, this has more meds than a pharmacy." One guy muttered in either awe or disbelief. While another let out a low whistle.

Carl's dad finally finished going through the first aid kit and then carefully put everything back and closed it again as he looked at her again. "Your name is Guardian?" He asked this time sounding just a little bit intrigued. She hesitated for a moment as Laurie came walking up and said.

"He can't talk Rick. Dale said that he has a throat injury that prevents him from speaking."

Something akin to sympathy flashed across the man's face. Not just his either. The korean guy in the cap and the guy with the crossbow both looked sympathetic as well. Though they hid it easier than...Rick did.

"He can't talk?" Rick asked in stunned disbelief. He couldn't imagine being out and not be able to call for help if he needed it. In fact the thought of someone being alone- being surrounded by walkers and unable to cry out if they needed to was downright _terrifying_ to him.

Laurie shook her head no and the man literally cringed. "Sorry. I..uh...w-wasn't trying to-"

She huffed and lifted a hand to wave his apology off. He didn't offend her and he certainly hadn't hurt her feelings any. Rick seemed a little bit less distressed once he realized that she wasn't bothered by his blunder any and gave her a small smile before then looking around as if he were searching the area for something.

She didn't know what the hell he was looking for. She couldn't really sense anything threatening in the immediate area any. Even the undead had wandered off a ways, deciding to steer clear of her for the time being.

"I-Is he alone?" Rick asked curiously. "I mean, wasn't he with a group or something? Or did he get separated from them by the herd of walkers?"

"I-I don't know." Laurie said as she glanced at her. "To be honest, none of us has even bothered to ask him much."

"You didn't bother to ask him?!" The guy that gave her the creeps practically shouted at the woman, rage lighting up his expression as he started to walk towards the two of them.

She reacted to the man as a threat out of instinct and pushed Laurie behind her in an effort to keep the him away from her. The man noticed the move and his steps faltered for a moment as he looked from her to Laurie as if he'd just been punched in the gut.

Giving Rick the chance to move forward and step between them as he asked, "Were you part of a group, Guardian?" She shook her head no and he let out a small angry hissing sound in response before asking her, "Is it okay if I come closer? I ain't going to hurt you or anything. I promise."

She stared him down for a moment or so before then looking at Laurie and getting a nod of assurance from the woman. She nodded and watched him like a hawk as he moved closer to her and then stopped just outside of her reach.

"So you aren't part of a group?" He asked again. She shook her head no and he sighed before then asking, "How old are you? Cause you seem young to me."

She held up one finger on one hand and four on the other and watched his eyes widen in stupefied disbelief before one of the others behind him growled out. " _Fourteen!_ You're fourteen and not part of a group?! _What the hell?!_ "

She didn't know what the hell the problem was. So she was fourteen and alone. So what?

It wasn't as if she'd never been alone before at even younger ages. Hell, she technically moved out of the house when she was twelve and only went back home to visit or if she was utterly starving to death. So naturally hearing someone carrying on about her age was pissing her off.

So she flipped Mr. Growly off.

Rick's stupefied expression vanished and he let out a choked sounding laugh at seeing her flip Daryl off. The man grumbled something about 'sassy, disrespectful mute kids' and then crossed his arms over his chest and fell silent.

It was at this point where Laurie gently put her hand on her shoulder before she asked, "Is it okay if you lose the hood, hon? We need to see your face."

She hesitated for a heartbeat or so, not wanting to show her face to them but understanding that if she got herself into some sort of situation it would be easy for someone to steal her parka and sneak up on them and cause trouble. Sighing, she reached up and hooked her fingers around the fabric of the hood and then slowly started to draw it back.

Letting the hood drop away, she stood there and let them see her face.

She heard one of the guys mutter a shocked sounding, "Holy shit." While the others simply made a collective hissing sound.

"Y-You're a girl?" Laurie asked, taking in her features. She didn't even bother to confirm or deny the question. There was no point in doing so when they could see her very clearly in the waning light.

To be honest, their friend T-Dog hadn't been terribly far from the mark with his 'angel' comment. Her dad, sisters and even a few of her friends back home had said the same thing, or at least something similar to it on more than one occasion. And to be frank, she really _hated_ being told how pretty she was. Especially by others.

It made her feel more like meat than a person.

Sort of like how she was being stared at at the moment by all of them. _So annoying, pick your tongues up off of the ground and say something already._ She thought to herself as she crossed her arms over her chest and looked at them in an irked manner.

Thankfully, Laurie was the first to snap out her funk and realize that she was uncomfortable with the staring and was nice enough to tug her hood back up over her head with a nervous/apologetic looking smile. "Sorry hon. I don't think any of us were expecting the next Miss Universe to be hiding underneath that hood."

She scrunched her nose up in disgust at the title, though she doubted that any of them could see the action any as Rick finally shook himself out of his shocked state and asked, "How long have you been alone out here?"

She looked back at him and huffed as she thought over his question for a moment and then reached out and wrote on the dirty car window next to her.

_**A year and a half.** _

The adults all frowned at the answer since the outbreak that ended the world as they knew it had only happened eight months ago.

"W-What were you doing out here alone for that long?" Laurie asked curiously.

She reached out and wrote out, **_A little bit of this and that. Visiting, camping, training._**

"What about your family? Are they still...alive? Aren't they worried?"

**_My dad's dead. My two sisters are being taken care of by a friend who's busy taking in survivors._ **

"What about your mom? Isn't she worried?"

_**She was killed when I was eight.** _

"I don't see any weapons on you... How do you handle running into walkers?"

**_Don't need them. I snap their necks and just move on._ **

Rick looked at her in stunned disbelief. Though he supposed that it was the one way to deal with walkers that the girl had. After all, walkers were dangerous. And without a weapon, she had to fight them _somehow_ otherwise she'd be dead already.

"One last question and then we'll stop asking you stuff for tonight... What is your name? It doesn't exactly seem right to call you Guardian or Guard. Even if both are just nicknames."

**_Ichigo. My name is Ichigo Kurosaki._ **

Rick nodded his head as tried the name out to see if he could pronounce it right as Glenn said with a giggle, "Your name means strawberry!" And a split second later let out a loud yelp as one of the kid's shoes slammed into the side of his face with enough force to send him sprawling to the ground on his ass.

"Damn girl! Were you a pro baseball player before all this? That's one hell of a fucking curve ball!" Daryl drawled out in awe/amusement as Glenn rubbed at his sore nose and glared at the girl.

Rick merely snorted and shook his head. As Laurie stifled a laugh behind her hands before Rick finally said, "I can see that your a keeper. Welcome to the group Ichigo."


	2. Chapter 2

A little while later everyone had started to settle in for the night and eat something while Rick, Shane, Glenn, Dale, Daryl and Andrea all went over a map of the area that they were in that one of them had found in one of the cars strewn along the highway.

While Carol continued to sit with T-Dog, who's condition was much better and steadily getting even more better by the minute.

Thanks to the kid and her make shift carry around pharmacy.

Which left Laurie to tuck in Carl and make sure that Ichigo was alright. Especially since she was setting up her own little area not too far from the rest of them. Yet was far enough away where if something happened- like a walker attack- then she could easily be taken unawares and left to die on accident.

Which was bad enough to begin with. But the moment that Rick and the others found out about her severely bruised ribs, the cuts, gnashes, and her broken wrist... Things just sort of snowballed from there.

Rick, Dale, Glenn, and Daryl had kicked up all kinds of a fuss and tried to talk the girl into sleeping in the camper or something. However Ichigo had kind of silently argued back and then got frustrated and stomped off, totally disregarding their concerns to find herself some peace.

True, she was well within their line of vision. And at least three of them were facing towards her little 'camp' area at all times. But still... They didn't understand _why_ the girl was being so damned unreasonable.

They just wanted her to be a bit closer so that they could help her if she needed it. After all, aside from her injuries, she couldn't speak.

It was natural that they would want her close by so that they could protect her should she need it.

Shane had already voiced his opinion on the matter, which went somewhere along the lines of dragging her little ass back to the group and hog tying her. But somehow that just didn't seem right to the others. At least not until Dale said, "She's not trying to be difficult guys. She's used to being alone and not having anyone to rely on or watch her back. She's trying to maintain her independence."

Which did make a great deal of sense to them all and helped to calm them down considerably as Laurie came walking back looking just a tad bit worried.

"Everything okay?" Rick asked once she rejoined them. She gave him a slightly strained smile and moved in close to his side so that he could wrap an arm around her shoulders.

"She's dead set on staying where she is. She doesn't want to move any closer. I-I can't tell if she's just trying to be somewhat considerate of everyone else's personal space or...if there's another reason entirely."

"Like being a dumbass." Shane growled in annoyance. Laurie thinned her lips in displeasure and looked at the man as he scowled down at the map that they were going over.

"Stubborn little fool." Daryl muttered as he cast a glance in the kid's direction to see what she was doing. She was just sitting there with a small fire going, making herself comfortable.

The man huffed quietly, not liking the fact that the girl was so damned far away and quickly began to think of some way to fix that as he tried to pay attention to what Rick was saying. Once they were done coming up with a plan to find Sophia, everyone would call it a night and get what little bit of rest that they could.

After saying goodnight to Rick and Dale, Daryl then turned and found himself wandering over to the kid's little area and dropping down to the ground next to her and her fire. She looked at him, wide eyed, as if she hadn't expected someone from the group to come over and sit down with her.

_Damned kid._ He thought as he said, "Ya mind some company." as he slipped his crossbow from his shoulder and set it down next to him, well within reach.

It wasn't a question. And there was absolutely no way that she could mistake his words as one either. So why did it seem to bug him so damned much when she merely shrugged her shoulders and then flopped herself over onto her back and just _ignored_ him altogether?

I mean, shouldn't she have been curious or something? After all, she was a new member of their little group. Didn't she at least feel curious about them? They were all certainly curious about her. And for good reason.

It was still just a tad bit _unbelievable_ to them that a mute, fourteen year old girl had been out in this goddamn mess that the world had fallen into, since the beginning of everything. She had no known weapons on her. No frigging defenses whatsoever that he could see.

Yet...she was smart. Like crazy smart.

She was at least smart enough to know how to kill walkers even without a weapon. And she carried around a shit load of meds in her bag- and Dale even mentioned that she seemed to know quite a bit about medical conditions and how to treat them.

Which might explain a thing or two about her busted ribs and broken wrist not hurting her any. Though he hadn't seen her take anything for the pain that she had to be in.

Still... Looking over at her, he noticed that she had curled up on her side- whether it was her good side or not, he had no damned clue. But she seemed to be dozing. Either that or she was really damned good at playing possum.

Deciding that it was in his best interests to go ahead and go to sleep himself, he stretched out on the ground across from her and made himself comfortable. Either way, the kid wouldn't be pulling any fast ones on him nor anyone else. If she so much as farted he'd know.

He was a notoriously light sleeper so just about anything tended to wake him.

* * *

Ichigo waited for more than an hour after the hunter started snoring before she did anything. After all, she'd twitched a few times to test and see just how light a sleeper the guy was, and had been pleased to know that while he was a light sleeper- he was _nothing_ like her.

Which was great since it meant that she could do her job in secret without anybody being the wiser.

Currently, she was standing all the way across the highway, a fairly good distance from the hunter and her 'camp', eyeing the shadows of the woods as if she'd like nothing more than to set the whole damn area on fire.

Truth be told, she was seriously considering it given how many groans and awkward shuffling/stumbling she could hear over the sound of crickets chirping. The only thing staying her hand at this point was the fact that she could easily sense a few living people in the area.

The closest of which was at least three miles away.

The feeling that she got from it was weak, thread- _tired_. Which could mean any number of things from the person was suffering from exhaustion to hunger to heat stroke or asleep.

Either way, she got the feeling that whoever it was was very young, and _incredibly_ scared. Which mean that she couldn't just leave them out there in the dark. _Alone_. Where literally anything could happen to them.

And that meant that she would be braving the woods to go and get them.

Sighing, she walked silently over to the car that the Korean guy was snoozing in and quickly wrote out where she went and why. She also made sure to mention that she'd be back in an hour and for the others not to shoot her. That would piss her off.

After that she turned on her heel and started back to the woods and after immediately entering them, she fell in a gopher hole. And was so very glad that she couldn't speak for once since she was pretty sure that she never would have lived down the utter _indignity_ of making an attempt to scream the woods down.

Seriously her friends- if they had just seen her freak out over falling into a gopher hole- would have laughed themselves silly. Because they were all a bunch of jerks.

On another note though, she now knew with absolute certainty that she needed to get herself a fucking flashlight.

Shaking her head as soon as she had her leg back from the nefarious hole-of-death that she'd fallen into, she started moving towards the direction of the person that she sensed a few minutes prior.


	3. Chapter 3

Ichigo crossed the distance between the camp and the location of the person that she had sensed easily. Sure she had run into a few undead along the way, but she was able to disperse them easily. After all, they weren't just slow. They were clumsy too.

Their senses- or what was left of them anyways, weren't that great either. So sneaking up on them was fairly easy given how stealthy she was. All she had to do was move in behind them, and reach a hand out and force their heads in one direction or another until she heard an audible snap.

After that was done, she just stepped over them and kept moving. Her heart aching for the people that these things used to be before they had died.

Especially those that hadn't died of natural causes.

Finally reaching the area where she had sensed the person, and noted that there was a little house about a dozen or so feet away surrounded by more than a few undead. Pausing for a moment, she tilted her head to the side a little bit and focused her Soul Reaper senses out into the area and felt her lips peel back from her teeth in a silent _snarl_ upon finding that the person's life was beginning to wane.

It was slow, and excruciating from what she could tell they were suffering terrible pain- but she figured that whoever the person was must have been bitten or something and was currently starting to burn with fever as the infection gradually spread itself throughout the person's whole body.

Which just made her move _faster_.

Her body becoming a blur of movement that was difficult for the undead, much less anything with a pulse to keep track of. Which was good since she didn't have any time left to fuck around with the undead. Not if she was going to save the person inside.

Finding the person- or child rather- was easy. The poor thing had literally collapsed in the hallway of the house and was just lying there struggling to breathe. Luckily, Ichigo already knew what to do to help her.

The first thing that she needed to do was grab and lift the kid and head somewhere deeper into the house where there was better light. Her night vision may be good, but as she had demonstrated earlier when she fell into that goddamned gopher hole- it wasn't _infallible_.

She didn't need much, just enough to see a little bit better.

Slipping her hands underneath the girl's armpits, she lifted her up off of the floor and started walking as she cradled her in her arms. The kid was so damned small and dainty that it was difficult for her to tell the kid's age. However she figured that the girl must be at least close to Laurie's boy in age.

She was woefully underweight too.

Once in the kitchen, Ichigo looked around for a moment and then moved to jerk the blinds down from the window since the moonlight streaming through it was pretty clear and unobscured and would light up the kitchen wonderfully enough for her to work.

After that was done, she set the girl down in the middle of the room and took a few moments to see where she was bitten since that would give her a decent idea of what sort of timeframe she was working with here.

After all, if she was going to save the kid then she needed to have a fair idea of how long shed been in her present state. She _could_ save her. But only if she was in the beginning stages of being infected.

The girl was bitten on the shoulder- the wound was fresh- barely an hour old. And the area that it was in was still seeping blood. _Good._ She thought with a grim smile.

From the looks of things, the girl had a decent chance. All she had to do was get some meds into her, and then inoculate her using her own blood since she was naturally immune to the virus or _whatever_ it was that was raising the dead.

Slipping her backpack off, she made quick work of digging out the pre-made syringes that she tended to carry on her for cases like this, and quickly gave the girl the antibiotics and pain meds before then drawing some of her own blood straight from her spleen, and then mixed it with some more antibiotics. And then grabbed the girl's small arm and pushed the needle into place and pushed the plunger down.

* * *

It was the call of nature that woke him up. Ambling out of the car that he'd chosen to sleep in for the night, Glenn was pretty much like a walker himself as he did his business. Once he finished, he shuffled his way back towards the car with the intention of promptly falling back asleep.

Taking a moment to scan the area around him- as he tended to habitually do nowadays for safety's sake. He noted that there were no walkers in the immediate area. Oh and the girl, Ichigo was missing.

Daryl was still asleep though so maybe she was just doing her business somewhere too. Otherwise the man would be up and cussing a blue streak and then some.

Getting back to his car, he looked it over and then before he seemed to register what he was seeing went ahead and climbed back in and started to get comfortable again when it suddenly hit him.

His eyes snapped back open, and he banged his head on the top of the car in his haste to move. But it was literally right there in front of his fucking face! Rubbing his smarting skull absently he took a moment to read and then re read what was written out on the windshield of his 'car' just to be totally sure that he wasn't missing anything.

**Guys,**

**Thought that I...heard or saw something in the woods. Going to go and check it out. Be back in an hour- don't shoot me. I'm serious, being shot pisses me off.**

**Ichigo**

"Fuck me." Glenn muttered in utter disbelief as he quickly scrambled to go and alert the others.


	4. Chapter 4

To say that Rick and the others were... _irked_ at the new girl and her sudden disappearing act, would be an understatement.

The second that Glenn had woken the men up to let them know that Ichigo was gone, Rick became worried. After all, they had already lost Sophia in the woods. And they didn't know how long the kid had been gone, much less what she might have gotten herself into while she was meandering around in the damned dark.

_Weaponless_ and _alone_ with no one to watch her back.

Shane...well he pretty much _stayed_ angry nowadays. So, no real surprise there.

And Daryl... Oh man Glenn had never seen the man in such a snit before.

This display of temper somehow seemed to be worse than the one where he'd found out about Merle being left behind in Atlanta by himself, Rick and a few others in their group. And in his opinion, it would be a miracle if the hunter didn't actually attempt to _throttle_ the girl for pulling such a stunt once they found her.

The man seemed to be all kinds of royally pissed about being woken up to be told that the kid was MIA. But then, Glenn supposed that Daryl had all sorts of reasons to actually be pissed at the moment.

One such reason was simply the fact that the girl had managed to pull a disappearing act with him literally lying less than three feet from her. Which, Glenn could honestly say was rather impressive considering how light a sleeper the hunter was. Especially since if so much of a cricket chirped fifty feet away, it tended to wake the man up.

So did the wind blowing. Leaves. And weird sounds that came from the people in his general vicinity.

So how the hell he had missed the girl getting up and leaving the camp was an utter mystery to them all. After all, someone from the group should have noticed her up and moving around.

Even if it was only vaguely.

Still, if there was one good thing about Ichigo taking off- it was the fact that she hadn't bothered to not leave a trail behind. Daryl had found the gopher hole that the kid had possibly fell in before they had left the camp to look for the girl, and all of them were now imagining how freaked out she had been upon falling into said hole.

But the funny part about finding the hole was the weird note etched into the dirt that Ichigo had obviously left behind.

**Note to self- get a frigging flashlight dumbass.**

_Well okay then_. Glenn thought as Daryl snorted.

Shane kept muttering weird stuff underneath his breath. And Rick kept shaking his head, though he managed to keep his expression carefully blank of any amusement that he had to be feeling at the moment as they followed Daryl deeper and deeper into the woods.

The group only _half_ expected to find more of Ichigo's funny notes to herself.

Everything was fine for a while. Until they came up on the walkers that had intercepted Ichigo's path sometime earlier. And then things got tense again. Though not for the reasons that one might think.

After all, it wasn't as if the girl were lying on the ground either dead or half devoured. No- that wasn't what was bothering everyone.

"Necks are broken," Daryl said as he looked at one of the bodies. It wasn't moving from the neck down, so obviously the kid hadn't been kidding about what she had written the previous night about 'snapping their necks and moving on'. "Kid came up behind this group of walkers- took them by surprise. There's no sign of any sort of struggle on the girl's end. She just...ran up, snapped all of their necks and then moved on."

"That was incredibly reckless." Rick said as he took note of how many walkers there were in the immediate vicinity of them.

Daryl hummed as he slowly straightened back to his full height. His eyes scan the bodies of the other walkers for a moment before quietly agreeing, "Yeah, it was."

"Do you see any fresh blood or anything?" Shane asked. Daryl looked down at the ground again, his sharp eyes checking the leaves and the dirt for any signs of fresh blood that might indicate the girl's current condition. After all, all of them knew that just because she hadn't struggled while taking out the walkers didn't mean that she hadn't gotten _hurt_ any.

And with her previously mentioned injuries, there was no telling whether she was hurting herself or not by not turning around and returning to camp.

Finally Daryl said, "Nah, I don't see any."

"Neither do I." Rick said as he flashed his flash light around the ground. Sighing, he then dropped his arm a little bit so that he could take a moment as Glenn finally decided to chime in about something that had been bothering him a little bit ever since meeting the girl.

"Hey guys," The other three men looked at him at the same time. Almost like a pack or wolves would. _That's not ominous at all._ He thought sarcastically before going on. "I've been meaning to talk to ya'll about something that's been bugging me ever since we met Ichigo yesterday."

"What is it?"

"Well... She's not part of a group and she's been alone since the beginning right?" This was something that they all knew. Basic knowledge-wise anyways. "I don't mean to be a nay sayer or anything, but doesn't the fact that a mute, weaponless, fourteen year old girl being out in this mess alone- strike any of you as just a little bit... _odd_?"

"What are you getting at?" Rick asked, a small frown marring his face as Shane said.

"It is a little bit odd. But there could be any number of reasons why she's alone. It doesn't necessarily have to be for anything nefarious."

"I never said that it was for anything _nefarious_. I just said that it's odd." Glenn said before then going on to say. "After all, she's a kid. What sort of survival skills do most fourteen year old girls know anyways. And what kind of person/persons would let her out of their sight to begin with?"

"She said that her parents were dead."

"She also said that she has a godfather who's taking in survivors and caring for her two sisters." Glenn pointed out. "My question is this. If she was out here alone for the fall of civilization and stuff...then how has she survived? Especially on her own. _Without_ being bitten." He made sure to stress the word so that the others would catch on to what he was trying to say.

"You think she was bit?" Daryl demanded, his expression going darker than anything that Glenn had ever seen before. Apparently Rick, Dale and himself weren't the only ones feeling particularly protective of the kid.

Rick and Shane both eyed him curiously.

"I think that if she really has been out here since the beginning...that there is a very high probability that she has been at one point or another. I mean think about it. There's no way that she could have _totally_ avoided being bitten at some point. Walkers are literally _everywhere_. In stores, buildings- places that look safe and hospitable. Places that have stuff that can work as supplies... All it takes is one wrong move. One act of desperation."

They were all quiet for a moment as Glenn decided to tack on. "What if she was bitten at some point. Weeks ago? Months? Maybe back at the beginning when everything was falling into chaos and people were turning on each other. Maybe she was bitten, and she became immune to whatever it was that infected her."

"Hold on just a damned minute. A-Are you actually saying that you think that damned brat might be immune to this... _thing_ that's killing the rest of us?!" Shane scoffed.

"Glenn why are you saying this?" Rick asked, sounding disbelieving.

Glenn shook his head and shrugged. "I dunno. Just...something to think on, ya know."

"But if you're right-" Daryl began to say when they all suddenly heard the sound of someone running in their direction and turned their heads to see Ichigo heading their way at a curiously fast pace.

She wasn't wearing her parka, choosing instead to use it to wrap something small that she was carrying in her arms. And she had a look of grim determination on her face that had all of them automatically snapping to attention as she drew closer to them.

It took them a moment or so to realize just what the girl was carrying. Or rather _who_ , but once Daryl practically shouted, "Shit! That's Sophia!" And quickly shouldered his bow and moved to take the smaller girl from Ichigo once she finally reached them. The others quickly shook off their funk to see for themselves if the girl had actually found Carol's missing girl.

Sure enough, they managed to crowd the girl long enough to see little Sophia's face peeking out of the parka's folds as Ichigo carefully handed her over to Daryl and let him and the others take a moment to check and make sure that the kid was alive while she took a moment to catch her breath.

Her wrist and ribs were protesting badly and she needed a second to slow her breathing before she moved another inch.

"I'll be damned, she's alive." Rick said with a small laugh as Glenn latched onto him and hugged him. Daryl nodded his head and cradled the little girl a little bit closer to his chest and then quickly turned and started moving back towards their camp.

Pissed or not about Ichigo running off like she had, she'd found Sophia. Which was going to make other's in their group very, very happy. Carol especially. So he reckoned that he could forgive the girl this time.


	5. Chapter 5

"Ya, alright Ichigo?" Rick asked for like the umpteenth time in so many minutes as they stood together. Ichigo cast him a odd look. But nodded her head just like she had every other time before when he'd asked her that.

When Daryl had taken Sophia back to camp, Glenn and Shane had gone with him. Just in case the man got into some trouble and couldn't defend himself.

Leaving Rick to hang back and keep an eye on Ichigo. Which was probably a good idea given how much her ribs seemed to be hurting her.

With the others gone, the former Sherriff took several minutes to look over the newest member of his group as she tried to catch her breath. The girl didn't seem aware of it. Or maybe she was and she just didn't give a damn. But without the large parka that Sophia had been wrapped in, it was much easier to see her.

Not just her face. But _all_ of her.

From the tipy top of her blue black head all the way down to what bit of flesh was bared by her hair and shirt.

And at the moment, he was eyeing what looked very much like a couple of scarred over human _bite_ wounds and thinking that Glenn must have been right about the girl being immune. Because those bite wounds looked positively vicious to him.

But aside from those, he could also see some of her other scars. _Bad ones_ , that littered almost every inch or so of her back, her shoulders, and neck.

The worst of which looked as if someone or _something_ had tried to literally tear one of her arms from her body, from her shoulder, at some point in time. It was old. Possibly years old. Rough, the skin puckered and pink and incredibly noticeable even in the barely there light of the flashlight that he held.

He could also see stab scars and slash cuts on her arms. Both of them.

There were scars between her shoulders that looked as if it had been made by lightening- which was weird and sort of frigging creepy too. But it overlapped with some other scars.

The girl also had burn scars and stuff too. Some bad, and barely noticeable. And others that were incredibly noticeable just like the one on her shoulder.

He waited patiently for her to finally catch her breath before straightening up from her doubled over position at which point Rick reached out and placed his hand on her nape like he tended to do with Carl, and began to steer the girl back towards camp as he decided not to say anything about her scars.

Not wanting her to feel as if she should leave the group by harassing her about them. He'd have to have some words with the others to make sure that they didn't either. Though he knew that the only ones that would likely pose any issues would probably be Shane and Andrea since the two were particularly desperate for some 'get out of jail free' card sort of thing.

And that kind of desperation and fear tended to make people do really, _really_ stupid and reckless shit.

They both went at her pace since her little run through the woods had obviously exacerbated her sore ribs more than a little bit and moving, even now, seemed to hurt her. It took them a little bit longer than the others to reach camp, but when they did they were greeted with crying and hugging.

Carol took one look at them and suddenly made her way over to Ichigo and latched onto her so suddenly that Rick didn't even have any time to warn the woman off. So he just stood there and watched as Carol alternated between hugging, and kissing the girl's face in-between crying and thanking her.

Ichigo...took it about as well as any teenager would when caught in the grasp of a crying/near hysterical adult.

There was a bit of comical flailing, some attempts to pry the woman off of her, and then the inevitable slump of her shoulders to signal her defeat. After that she just stood there with a weirdly blank look on her face and let the woman do what she wanted earning a small chuckle and a shake of his head from Rick.

She probably thought that Carol would let her go once she got it all out of her system. However she was dead wrong there. The woman didn't let her go once she was finished thanking her. Instead she took a step back a little bit to look the girl over and noted that she seemed to be in pain and grabbed her arm and started to drag her off so that she could take care of her.

Ichigo got a panicked look on her face and started flailing her free arm again, trying to get someone to step in and help her. But everyone was so amused by the girl's antics that they merely smiled and waved as the woman dragged her off.

Once she was on the camper and out of earshot and sight, Ricks smile faded a little bit as Daryl walked up to him along with Glenn, Dale, and Laurie at which point the hunter asked him, "Ya see the scars on her?"

"Yeah, I did."

"I've never seen a kid covered in such..." Dale said before seeming to pause to struggle with the right word to describe the scars on Ichigo's body before finally saying in a distraught tone. " _Disfiguring_ scars before. Did you see the one on her shoulder? It goes all the way through! There's no way that she doesn't have nerve damage from something like that!"

Rick nodded his head mutely.

"Could you tell what kind of injuries they were?" Laurie asked.

"Defensive." Rick said almost automatically. "I can't speak for all of them, but a majority of the ones that I saw were defensive wounds."

"C-Could someone get wounds like that from being abused?" Glenn asked, knowing that it was something that was likely going unsaid because none of them wanted to think to closely about what sort of _monster_ would do such a horrible thing to a little girl.

However the moment that he asked his question, Daryl and Rick both got a downright murderous look on the both of their faces at the mere thought of someone holding the girl down and all but killing her before Daryl growled angrily at him. "If she was in a prison camp during world war two, maybe."

After which Rick finally said, "I agree. Those aren't just abuse wounds from having a really rough childhood. Those are _torture_ scars."

* * *

Carol had Ichigo seated on the toilet across from her as she ran a wet rag over the girl's dirt smudged face. "I just can't believe that you managed to find my baby girl. Rick, Daryl and the others searched and searched for hours yesterday and couldn't find her anywhere."

Carol had repeated this several times since dragging her off to take care of her. And every time she mentioned the same words, Ichigo would scrunch up her nose a little bit.

Like a little rabbit. The small action made the woman smile every time it happened.

She hadn't felt this happy in a while. And after Sophia had been chased into the woods by that walker...she had worried that she would never see her baby alive again. "I guess T-Dog was right to call you an Angel." She said as she ran the wet rag across Ichigo's cheeks again.

There was some particularly stubborn dirt smudges that were refusing to come off. Carol rewet the rag and then tried to scrub harder, but Ichigo stopped her by gently taking the rag from her and mercilessly scrubbing her face red until the dirt finally came off.

Once it was off, she handed the rag back to Carol who chuckled at her.

"I think you scrubbed so hard that some skin came off," The woman said. Ichigo shrugged her shoulders, obviously not caring any as the woman went on to say, "You know, T-Dog is doing much better now thanks to you. His fever is breaking and he managed to eat and drink something a little while ago. And now my baby was brought back safe and sound. I'm beginning to think that we should call you Lucky. It could be short for Lucky Charm. What do you think?"

Ichigo scrunched her nose up again and Carol grinned.

She was beginning to suspect that the woman kept saying weird shit to her on purpose to get her to react to her by scrunching up her nose.

"Well, either way. You're definitely a keeper." Carol said as she slowly got to her feet and reached out to ruffle her hair affectionately before then saying, "I'm going to go sit with Sophia for a bit."

Ichigo merely blushed a little bit and curtly nodded her head and waved awkwardly as the woman walked off and finally left her alone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief continuation of the former conversation between Rick and the others.

Rick finally said, "Those are _torture_ scars."

There was a mixture of horrified gasps and angry expressions amongst the small group before Rick said, "There's something else too-" Everyone tensed up, expecting some other horror that the man had come across littering the girl's skin as Rick took a moment to collect himself before saying, "Glenn, I think you're right about Ichigo and how she must have survived this long..." He paused for a moment as Daryl and Glenn looked at him wide eyed in disbelief.

Because there was _no_ fucking way. There just wasn't.

Surely god in his infinite knowledge wouldn't be so _cruel_ as to saddle a mere child of fourteen with being the one to save them. No one could be that unkind. Right?

"I saw the bites. Three of them. They're months old, but they are there." After that, he let the implications of what he'd just said to them sink in amongst them and then before anyone could ask any questions, he quickly wrangled the promise out of all of them that they wouldn't say anything or hassle the kid about the bites and how she survived them.

One wrong step with the girl could send her running. And condemn them all to _die_.

And Rick made damned sure that everyone knew that before he shooed them off to go about their usual routine so that he could go and find Shane and...do something productive.

Like find something to keep himself busy with.

* * *

The rest of the day afterwards was fairly uneventful. Nobody got attacked. In fact the walkers seemed to be steering clear of them altogether no matter how much noise they accidentally made.

And the one walker that didn't, was viciously taken out by Ichigo before it could even get close to their group. Which was somewhat _shocking_ to Rick. Especially when the way that the girl moved bespoke of years and years of hands on experience at killing.

Which was….beyond interesting and maybe a little bit alarming as well to say the least.

However the man decided not to say anything about it for the moment and simply filed the information away for a later date. Preferably one somewhere down the line when the girl trusted them a little bit more and was finally a bit more comfortable with telling them some of her secrets.

Until then, he'd simply keep an eye on the girl and see what else she did/could do.

In fact, after that little incident, the only things worth taking any notice of was the fact that T-Dog's fever finally broke and the man was up and moving around some by the time afternoon rolled around.

Sophia managed to wake up as well a little bit later in the day.

She and Carol had a nice, tearful little reunion in private.

While Ichigo decided to finally take pity on Dale and took over fixing the camper for him after watching him struggle for a good two hours. And once it was up and running again, everyone decided to celebrate with a nice dinner...that both Daryl and Ichigo managed to hunt down for them a little while later.

The man hadn't even bothered to complain about the girl going with him to hunt. He had accepted her company with startling ease. But then, she was mute. So what was the point in complaining when she couldn't make any sound to scare the man's prey away with?

Dinner upon their return that evening was great. In fact it was _better_ than any of them had managed to eat in a good long time. Even when they'd been at the quarry.

Their meal consisted of wild pheasant that Daryl had found and killed, and some vegetables that Ichigo had managed to stumble across. The kid had also collected some pheasant eggs, nuts, herbs, onions, garlic, potatoes and a few other things that shocked the hell out of everyone.

Not that any of them were complaining any.

They all needed the food pretty _badly_ given how lean some of their group were getting. So naturally, they gorged themselves a little bit once the food was cooked. Managing to split three pheasants between everyone in the group was easy. Especially given the fact that they had some potatoes and a few other things to eat too.

Some people didn't eat as much as they probably should have given the fact that their stomachs had shrunk more than a tad from going without a lot of food.

So while the rest of them were enjoying making total pigs of themselves, sitting around and talking and telling jokes and laughing- Ichigo had finished off an raw egg and ate herself a little bit of pheasant meat and a couple of veggies. And then grabbed some plastic baggies and began to bag what was left over from her meal up to go into the fridge on the camper since it had a fully functioning cooler and freezer.

She figured that if she could freeze some of the meat and veggies, then they could use it later when food got scarcer. Just in case they ran into a rough patch somewhere down the line and were unable to go out to forage or hunt.

Like when it _snowed_ during the winter and the temperature's dropped too low to even bother going outside.

She wasn't sure if the others were aware that they should do the same since her meager collection wouldn't sustain them all...but since they were so happy at the moment, she figured that she'd leave them be and simply start hunting to put food back on her own.

She was pretty good with any sort of game and had made a habit in recent months of being able to catch and kill just about anything that she got her hands on...food-wise. And she was almost as good at finding wild veggies, and fruits too.

At least she'd finally figured out what was eatable and what wasn't. She'd gotten really damned tired of giving herself food poisoning and stuff because she'd eaten the wrong thing.

And using leaves as toilet paper was a colossal pain. Especially when you had the runs.

Zipping up the baggies that she'd placed her food in, she stood up and moved to go and put the stuff in the camper and nearly ran into the hunter.

"Whoa, girl. Where you going?" The man asked curiously as he stared down at her for a moment before then frowning upon noticing the plastic baggies in her hand. "What's this?" He asked as he reached out and gently took the baggies from her so that he could see what she had put in them before finally asking her, "Did ya even eat anything kid?"

She nodded her head and he handed the baggies back to her with a soft sigh before saying. "Alright." And then walking away.

To say that his behavior seemed...well, _weird_ to her would be an understatement.

But she decided not to let it bother her any and then went and put her food in the fridge as she made plans to do some late night hunting to see if she could collect some extra food before they decided to move on and leave the area.


	7. Chapter 7

They moved away from the freeway the next morning after breaking camp. However they didn't go very far, which was a relief to Ichigo for a multitude of reasons.

One of which was the fact that the undead had pretty much decimated a _lot_ of their much needed resources. The animal population had taken a huge hit, which made them less and less easy to find since their survival pretty much depended on their ability to outrun, hide and outsmart the ones killing them off so wantonly.

Plant life had taken a hit too. Though not in the same way that the animals had.

While the plats that people depended on for medicines and food weren't exactly killed off. They were however contaminated by the undeads uncanny ability to trample on it and drop their rotting flesh and _tainted_ , coagulated blood all over the place.

Luckily, there were ways around both of those things. However that didn't help the group any if they moved into an area where food and resources weren't all that plentiful.

Like in the cities.

Thankfully, Ichigo's new charges weren't all that inclined to move to any cities at the moment. Instead they had chosen an abandoned farm several miles from their original location and took a few hours to clear it of the undead.

The farm that they chose was a decent size, had a large three floor colonial style house on it. And had more than enough land for her to lay traps and set up small warning systems in place to keep the undead from sneaking up on any of them.

Not only that, but it had some animals on it that were still alive.

A few cows- less than ten, which was fine. Half of them were still young and appeared to be fairly healthy males and females that could be used for breeding some for slaughter. There were also some chickens, and some horses.

All of which also seemed to be in good condition.

There was also a apple orchard and a fair sized garden that had somehow _miraculously_ remained untouched despite the deaths of the farm's owner and his family. Which meant that they would have some carrots, cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, peas, green beans, watermelon. And a few other things like corn, black berries, and blue berries.

There was a large pond a decent ways from the house that Ichigo could sense still had some living fish in it. A nice number of eatable, fat fish. She had to resist the urge to rub her hands together and say, _Excellent_ , to herself like a crazy person.

However as nice as knowing that they were in a place with a semi steady food supply was- it wouldn't sustain them all for an extended period of time. Especially since Laurie was expecting.

Ichigo had noticed the small flickers of life nestled inside of the woman the other day. However because it wasn't her place to inform anyone of such a thing- she kept her mouth shut. It was her job to keep these people _alive_. Not tell them that they were going to bring an innocent new life into this unbalanced hell hole of a world.

Besides, everyone had more than enough on their plates as it was. They didn't need the added stress that an infant would bring to the table.

It just meant that she would have to buckle down and work that much harder. And she was perfectly okay with that.

She turned fifteen a few days after they moved onto the farm. And though everyone went about stuff; business as usual. She couldn't help but feel a little bit depressed about turning fifteen away from her sisters and her friends. But she got over it easily enough though, especially after going on a run with Rick, Glenn, and Daryl where she managed to find herself some new clothes, some nice steel toed leather boots, a brush, and a few other things.

A new bag to carry her things in since the one that she had now was beginning to come apart. A fact that she had been made aware of the other day when she nearly lost a glass bottle of medicine. So, yeah a new bag was in order.

She also found a couple of knives and a Japanese katana blade.

It was _nothing_ like her Zangetsu. But she had it hidden for the moment and couldn't use it without summoning forth _all_ of her Soul Reaper abilities to materialize it. So being able to find a different sword to work with for the moment was rather nice.

Zangetsu argued with her for damned near an hour about how she'd never be able to replace him with the katana's puny, dull blade. She hadn't bothered to argue with him further once he'd said that.

She'd been a little bit more concerned about the fact that he had sounded just a mite jealous to her to even bother.

Especially since she hadn't been aware that zanbaktou's could even _get_ jealous. But thanks to the fact that he was currently giving her the silent treatment, she knew now.

She'd also found a few blade sharpening rocks that she could use to sharpen her katana and knives, after which she had scavenged a few empty jars with lids and stuff and stuffed them all into her 'shopping' bag and then grabbed the rest of her stuff and went to rejoin the others.

Once she was back at the farm, she'd put her haul in her new 'room' in the house. A nice spacious bedroom that she shared with Daryl since none of them could afford to be camping outside until the farm was more fortified and _safe_ for them to be alone at night.

Which made sense.

Especially since part of the group was looking into different ways to make the place safer. Some wanted to get trailers and bring them onto the farm and set them up as extra living quarters. Which was understandable.

The house may be big and have quite a bit of room. But things got awkward really fucking fast for some of them. Especially when they were sharing a room with someone.

Carl had accidentally walked in on Sophia taking a bath and changing her clothing a time or two, and the girl had nearly screamed the house down and sent the boy running off in a near hysterical panic.

Thankfully she didn't have that problem. For one thing, she could remember how to lock a damned door.

And two, Daryl was one of the rare guys who respected her privacy when it came to dressing, bathing, and undressing. The man had even hung a blanket on a chord in the corner of the room so that neither of them would feel... _weird_ about sharing the same space whenever they dressed, undressed, and changed.

After all, he was a grown man and she was a teenage girl. Privacy was simply a thing that they both _needed_. Which was nice. Because if she had found out that she was sharing a room with a pervert- she would have gouged his eyes out already.

Luckily, it wasn't an issue. So far the only issue that they had with each other was he'd sleep without a shirt. And she'd pick up his dirty laundry to keep herself from tripping over it.

And they didn't argue about that any. In fact they handled themselves really well.

She would simply remind him to keep a shirt close, just in case they needed to run in the middle of the night. And he'd taken to picking his clothing up and piling it in his corner of the room out of her way, making sure to bury any dirty undies that were in said pile on the bottom of it so that she couldn't see them.

Sitting on her bed, she laid the knives and katana blade out beside her and then took a moment to unpack everything else that she'd picked up. Deciding that she needed a bath before she did anything else since it had been a couple of days since her last one.

She grabbed a shirt, a pretty aquamarine and mint green butterfly print hoody that she'd found, and a pair of jeans and whatever else she needed and then headed for the nearest bathroom to get cleaned up.

She passed Shane out in the hall. The man hadn't really warmed up to her any since she had first joined the group. Which might not have bothered her quite so damned much if he would stop looking at her as if she were a piece of meat or something.

He gave her a once over as she passed him, something that she was sure he believed that she didn't notice any. But still gave her the creeps regardless before he disappeared around the corner. She paused in mid step to look back at him over her shoulder, her expression curious. Yet just as quickly, she seemed to shrug what she was feeling off and then walked on.

She made absolutely certain to lock the bathroom door once she was inside. And even grabbed the toilet plunger and placed it right in front of the door, to act as a warning if anyone decided to pick the lock and walk right in.

And while she doubted that the others in the group would do something so sketchy, she very much doubted if she could count Shane as one of them.

Once that was done, she made quick work of stripping her dirty clothing off and setting it aside in a neat pile and then turned her attention to turning the water on. She didn't bother waiting for the water to warm up, since it was rare nowadays to be able to waste such precious time.

So she climbed into the shower before the water was so much as lukewarm and grabbed the soap and began to carefully and meticulously scrub her skin. Hands, arms, shoulders, face- she scrubbed her hair with what shampoo and conditioner they had found- while making a mental note to maybe cut her hair.

It was getting longer than she needed it to be and to be perfectly honest, she wasn't so good at caring for long-long hair. So maybe a cut would make it much more manageable. She supposed that she could cut it short like she used to have it, but automatically dismissed the idea almost as quickly as it had come to her.

While short cuts were far more manageable, she still needed it to be a specific length to be recognized as a female. Her shoulders, maybe? Would a bob cut even look okay on her?

She didn't even know.

Rinsing her hair, she just stood there for a moment or so thinking before finally sighing and turning the water off. After that, she wrung out her hair so that it would dry easier and then toweled herself off and then slowly got dressed.

Once that was done, she grabbed her dirty clothes and wrapped them in the towel that she'd used and then grabbed everything and started back to the bedroom.

After all, she had some blades to sharpen and she'd probably spend the rest of her day holed up doing just that.


	8. Chapter 8

"Ichigo isn't joining us for dinner again?" Carol asked with a worried look on her face as she scanned the people sitting down to eat at the table around her.

Shane snorted. "Kid's nothing but a stuck up little bitch." He said loud enough for everyone to hear, and was promptly smacked hard in the back of the head by both Laurie and Rick. " _Ouch!_ What the?"

"Language. There are kids here, remember." Rick said in a chastising tone.

"Maybe she doesn't eat with the rest of us because some of our group say mean things about her." Laurie said with a pointed glare in the man's direction as he absently rubbed at his head. A frown crossing his face as he stared right back.

He still didn't understand what was so damned great about the girl that everyone just had to defend her whenever he said something about her. It didn't matter if he was voicing an opinion or simply being honest about some of her behavior.

The girl was bad news.

And it wasn't just because of the fact that she was a kid either. She didn't like to listen or socialize. She tended to run off on her own without a moment's notice without telling anyone _what_ she was doing or _where_ she was going. She refused to handle a gun, even to protect herself from walkers. Preferring to take them out with her bare hands. Which was utterly _disgusting_.

Still...

While it was true that she had killed her fair share of walkers since joining them. And she did somehow manage to find Sophia _alive_ and well. And yeah, maybe she had saved T-Dog's life too.

Those things meant very little in the grand scheme of things. Out here it was literally survival of the fittest, and to him she was just a lazy punk kid who didn't carry her own weight.

"She's upstairs messing with her new toys." Daryl said as he sat down next to Carol.

"Toys?" The woman asked curiously. "Like dolls?"

The hunter chuckled softly at the very idea of the girl playing with something as damned feminine as _dolls_. It was a funny picture. But hardly one that suited her any given her tomboy-ish behavior.

"Nah, the kid picked herself up a few nice little pieces of weaponry while we were on our run."

That had everyone's- well, everyone that hadn't gone on the run with her- head's snapping up and all eyes on the man. As far as they knew, the girl had an insane dislike of weapons. So hearing that she had picked some up while on a run in the local town was... _shocking_ to say the least.

"She got herself a gun huh?" Shane questioned thoughtfully. His opinion of the girl altering ever so slightly, despite the fact that his dislike of her didn't falter any.

"Nah, kid doesn't like guns. To noisy." Daryl said as he grabbed a piece of corn from one of the plates on the table. Shane's disappointment was literally painted all over his face. "She did however get herself some nice pieces though. Some throwing knives. A thirteen inch bowie knife with a serrated blade on one side and teeth on the other, and a frigging Japanese sword. Last I saw her, a few minutes ago she had just gotten out of the shower and was sitting on the bed sharpening the sword."

"Why on earth would she get herself a bunch of knives and a sword? Does she even know how to use them?"

"Doesn't matter if she does or not. At least now we don't have to worry so much about walkers getting close to her. The sword alone will work wonders to keep them at bay."

"And kill one of us in the process no doubt." Shane muttered before saying, "Maybe someone should take everything but the throwing knives from her." Rick and several of the others looked at him in alarm before he hastily tacked on. "Just until someone can _teach_ her how to handle them without hurting herself or anyone else. And it wouldn't hurt for her to learn how to shoot a gun either."

"I think the entire point of getting herself knives and a sword is so that she can _hurt_ others. I mean it's not rocket science, Shane. You take the sharp and pointy end and you just stick it into someone else. It's literally pretty self-explanatory." Daryl drawled out as he eyed the other man in disdain. The words, _Only a dumbass wouldn't know how to_ _use them_. Hung unsaid between the two men and everyone else when Glenn cleared his throat and awkwardly asked,

"Y-You guys do know that she has some sort of training right?"

And before any of them could so much as asked him what he meant, Ichigo came bounding down the stairs with her katana in one hand, and headed straight for the door.

Rick started to get up to go and grab her, but a well timed and very well aimed dinner roll to the back of the head stopped him completely. Everyone else at the table had a mixture of expressions ranging from comical horror, to flat out looks of utter disbelief. Well...except for Daryl.

But anyone who really knew him knew that the man was utterly unrepentant about pretty much _everything_ he said or did. So naturally when Rick slowly turned his head to eye the man, he was already licking the buttery evidence of what he'd done from his fingers.

"D-Did you just throw a dinner roll at my head?" Rick asked.

He wasn't sure what think, much less feel at the moment.

On one hand, he was pretty amused by what had just occurred. He hadn't had actual food thrown at his head since Carl was a baby. And on the other hand...if he could have reached the man, he probably would have throttled him right then. Especially since they didn't know what Ichigo was doing with her sword outside.

Daryl finished licking the butter from his fingers before simply saying, "Nah. I wouldn't dare." That was another thing about the hunter- he was _liar_. Sometimes a bad one. But a liar nevertheless.

"Where's your dinner roll?"

"I ate it," Daryl said easily before then tacking on, "And now I'm going to eat another." And then reached over and grabbed himself another dinner roll and broke a small piece off and then popped it into his mouth.

Everyone started laughing right about then as Rick settled himself back down in his seat with a grumble.

* * *

Ichigo returned nearly an hour in a half later, when the sky was starting to change from blue to grey. Indicating that it was going to rain in a little bit.

Rick was standing on the porch with Dale and Glenn when she came back. And though Glenn had mentioned that she had training- which he wasn't going to waste his time disputing. Honestly, he thought that Glenn was right. He just didn't know what sort of training the kid had.

So naturally, he was curious to _know_ just what she could do.

"Hey Ichigo! How did it go? Did you figure out whether the sword would work for you or not?" Glenn called out to the girl as Shane stepped outside and eyed the girl as she paused in mid step and responded to Glenn's inquiry with a thumbs up.

Glenn smiled at her, happy to know that her little test for the sword had gone well. She started walking again when Shane decided to make his move.

"Oi, kid! We had a little talk about you running around with a weapon that you don't know how to use-"

_"Shane-"_ Rick said warningly. However the man waved him off and just kept going.

"So once you get up on the porch, your going to hand your sword over. You're bowie knife too. And you won't get them back until one of us can teach you how to handle them."

Ichigo didn't seem to respond any to the man's words aside from the minute tightening of her grip on the katana's sheath as she walked. She brushed by Shane intending to go straight to her room and put her sword up, but the man grabbed her shoulder.

Which was a bad move on his part since she automatically threw him with a well practiced move. He landed several feet away from her in a heap of arms and legs and lay there on the ground groaning as she flipped him the bird and just kept walking until she was finally inside.


	9. Chapter 9

Daryl looked at her as he entered the bedroom with a plate of left overs from dinner that Carol had put together for her, and not for the first time, mentally cursed Shane and his idiocy. Gently closing the door behind him, he stood there for a moment and took note of how tense Ichigo was.

The damned girl was practically vibrating she was so tense. _No wait- that wasn't quite right_. He thought with a frown as he took in her expression with a feeling of dread.

The kid wasn't just tense. It was like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She had a look of such... _grimnes_ s on her face that it simply froze him in place. A kid shouldn't ever have such a look on their face. Especially not this kid. _Just what the hell had the girl gone through before joining their group to put such a_ _damned look on her face?_ He wondered.

Her grip on the sword was so tight that her knuckles were completely white. As if she were expecting something _beyond_ horrible to happen at any given moment and wasn't really sure what to do about it.

Sighing, he gave her an slightly strained smile and walked over to her and set the plate down on the bed and then knelt down in front of her and asked, "Ya okay?"

She thinned her lips and started to nod her head when they both heard Shane scream from downstairs, _"I want her gone!"_

He winched a little bit. Whereas Ichigo visibly cringed as Shane's scream was quickly followed by Rick clearing roaring back, _"She isn't going anywhere!"_ After that, things downstairs went strangely quiet.

Not really silent. Not really anything except _hushed_.

Daryl looked at the girl again and tried to think of something reassuring to say. After all, it wasn't her fault that Shane was an asshole. The man was strangely single minded in his views and opinions. And he'd taken a near instant dislike of her ever since the day that they'd met her and she'd placed herself between him and Laurie.

Her fingers tightened a little bit more on her sword- if that was even possible. Which was the only real indication that she was getting even more upset than she already was.

Reaching out, Daryl laid his hand on top of her head and ruffled her hair as he said, "It's alright. Ain't none of us going to send you off. Shane can whine and bitch all he likes. No one cares. And you shouldn't either." Her grip on her sword loosened a tad. But only just so as he slowly pulled his hand back and said, "Carol made you that plate of food. I know that you don't generally like socializing all that much, but try and eat. And maybe try and come down from time to time to eat dinner with us. It'll keep everyone from worrying, ya know."

She nodded her head curtly as he slowly stood up and moved over to his side of the room and sat down.

* * *

The rest of the day was uneventful.

Ichigo refused to leave her room for any reason outside of needing to use the bathroom or walker emergencies. Which was just fine by Daryl since it meant that Shane couldn't corner her and try to start something again.

The next day, he managed to coax her out of the bedroom for breakfast. But she made sure to have her sword on her when she left.

Apparently she didn't trust Shane _not_ to sneak into the room at some point and steal her stuff.

He couldn't exactly say that he blamed her for that any. Shane was still pissed about her... _throwing_ him? Though to be fair, despite the fact that Daryl hadn't actually _seen_ what she had done to the man- though he certainly saw the lingering effects of it when he sat down for breakfast with everyone else.

Shane's arm was in a sling, literally. And someone managed to mention that Ichigo's little stunt had somehow dislocated the man's arm at the shoulder.

So naturally he was pretty upset with her.

But then, Ichigo seemed pretty fucking upset with him too. Though Daryl could only hazard to guess why up until Shane demanded that the girl apologize for hurting him and the kid flipped him off. The growl that came from the man was akin to that of an angry grizzly as he shot to his feet and started to head towards where the girl was seated only to be cut off by Rick, who quickly shot up out of his seat and stepped in Shane's way.

"I can't believe that your still taking that brat's side! She hurt me Rick!"

"Well maybe if you hadn't gone off on and run your mouth and _acted_ like you were a threat- and grabbed her. Then maybe she wouldn't have!"

Daryl went almost totally still upon hearing that Shane had grabbed the girl. He couldn't really imagine the man being such an ass that he'd _actually_ lay his hands on the girl. Especially in a manner that she deemed threatening enough to retaliate over.

"He grabbed ya?" He asked, making sure to keep his voice low enough for only her to hear. Ichigo lifted a hand absently to rub at her shoulder and Daryl narrowed his eyes at the subconscious action.

_So that's a yes then._ He thought darkly before then asking, "Did he hurt ya? Leave a bruise?"

She seemed to hesitate for a moment before reaching up and moving the collar of her shirt aside a bit to see if he had. Because she'd been pretty pissed the previous evening, she hadn't bothered to check and make sure that the man hadn't left a mark or anything.

So she was only a little bit startled to see the blue-ish purple discoloration on her shoulder where the man had grabbed her. Daryl however...wasn't so much as startled as he seemed utterly furious at the sight of the mark.

He clenched his jaw and looked as if he were a second away from getting up out of his chair and decking the man. And he just might have actually done it if it wasn't for Ichigo's hand gently laying on his arm. As if she were trying to tell him to leave the man be.

Daryl growled and shifted a little bit in his seat as he though darkly, _Oh I'll leave him be alright_. Up until he caught him alone somewhere out of sight of everyone. And then he'd lay the man flat on his ass.

Luckily, Rick managed to drag the man back to his seat and force him back into it. However, unluckily, for all of them Shane wasn't content to just sit there and grin and bear it. Not when Ichigo was sitting at the table.

"I just think she should apologize for what she did. She could have seriously hurt me throwing me like she did."

Daryl literally saw red at the man's words and _snarled_ , "She ain't apologizing to you for shit! She didn't do anything wrong. She perceived you as a threat because your always _acting_ like one. Besides, you grabbed her hard enough to leave a bruise on her!"

"Ichigo? Honey is that true?" Laurie asked in vague alarm, Rick looked at her, his jaw clenched and an angry look on his face. Oh sure, she and the others knew that Shane had grabbed her. But to grab her hard enough to leave a mark.

That was just low.

Especially for a man who once upheld the law.

Ichigo went totally still, a weird alarmed deer-caught-in-the-headlights look crossing her face as Carol suddenly chimed in. "He did. I saw it when she showed it to Daryl just a second ago. There's a blue-purple hand shaped mark on her shoulder."

Rick moved to stand behind her, causing Ichigo to stiffen a little bit in her seat as he gently moved the collar of her shirt aside to see the bruise for himself.

It was like ripping off a band aid. Over and done in the span of mere seconds.

Yet it made Ichigo no less _uncomfortable._ So much so that it took almost all that she had just to stay in her seat. After all, she wasn't used to being the focus of so much attention and there were times where having so many people look at her with such intent made her frigging skin crawl.

"Does it hurt?" She heard Rick asked her softly. She shook her head no, and then went still again as the man ruffled her hair and then quietly moved away.

She didn't have to see his face to know that he didn't believe her any about the bruise not hurting. Rick was a worrier by nature and tended to worry about just about everything under the sun when it came to _both_ their individual well being and group's well being as a whole. So naturally, it was understandable that the man was worried that the bruise might actually be hurting her.

The color was...misleading to him, she supposed.

So of course it was also natural that she wound up with a couple of shadows for the day.

_Goddamn it._


	10. Chapter 10

Ichigo had known ever since meeting Shane that he would cause issues for her. Though she supposed that she should have at least tried a little bit harder _not_ to lose her temper. However she knew herself well enough to know that it was only a matter of time before she well and truly snapped.

She just hadn't expected to do so quite so... _spectacularly._ Honest to god even she was left gaping at the scene before her in stupified shock and disbelief. But then, she wasn't the only one.

Her two shadows were in a similar state at the moment.

Both men openly gaping at what she had just done and the chaos it had created. Because there was no frigging way in hell someone or something hadn't _seen_ or _heard_ that.

For god's sake, the damned thing had exploded!

_This is what I get for trying to fix something while I'm pissed._

In her defense though, if Shane had just fucking leave her alone like he was supposed to- then she wouldn't have done her breathtaking impression of the incredible Hulk.

_Oh if the others were here and saw this.._. _I would never live it down_. She thought as she finally managed to shake herself out of her funk long enough to look away from the smoldering, twisted remains of the car that she had just picked up, brutally torn to pieces and then thrown a mile away _after_ she had set it on fire- to her two shadows for the day.

Glenn and Dale looked like they were a heartbeat away from either fainting or pissing themselves. Probably the latter. Frankly she didn't think they could make up their minds between being completely and utterly _terrified_ , or impressed.

Well... Dale was easier to read than Glenn was anyways.

She definitely got the impression that the old man was more than a tad bit impressed. And maybe a little bit intimidated as well. But then he'd be stupid not to be intimidated by her wanton act of random violence.

And Glenn gave her the impression that he was now thinking that she was an alien or something.

She actually saw his eyes flicker _up_ towards the sky as if he were looking for the mothership.

All in all they were taking this rather well. Anyone else would have shit themselves by now and tried to run away. Glenn finally managed to squeak and then tried to run.

And she wound up rolling her eyes at the blatant display of stupidity. Honestly, if she could do that to a car without even breaking a sweat- then what the hell made the man think that he could escape her by _running_? Was he really that thick? She wondered as she bent over at the waist and scooped up a stick.

It wasn't big, wasn't too heavy, but in her hands; she could literally take an army out with it. So once Glenn managed to get two steps away from his original spot- she threw it and nailed him in the back of the legs. Right where his knees were, sending him sprawling to the ground with a weird startled sounding squawk.

Dale eyed her like she was about to break out a straw and slurp up the younger man's brains through his eyeballs with it as she brushed by him to go and grab Glenn. After all, now that the two knew what she could do she couldn't just let them scamper back to the others just yet.

Glenn looked so freaked out that it actually hurt to look at him as she reached him and gently hauled him to his feet by his arm.

Once he was on his feet again, she grabbed the note pad that Dale had insisted that she bring with them when they had left the others and quickly wrote out, **Calm down.** **Both of you. We're just going to talk.** And then held it out for the two to see.

"Y-You mean that you aren't going to kill us to keep your secret?" Glenn stammered out. She gave him a bored look as she scribbled out.

**If I had intended to kill you- you'd be dead already. Besides, this was never meant to stay a secret forever. I was going to tell you and the others. Just...not so soon.**

"O-Oh." Glenn said as he read what she had wrote out.

"So what happened?" Dale asked.

As the calmer of the two, he had more than likely already figured out what he was going to ask. Which was great. Especially since she got the feeling that Glenn was going to ask her something ridiculously along the lines of 'did you get your powers from a radioactive spider bite' or something.

Honestly, she liked the guy, he was nice and all but he read too much comic books.

**Rare genetic defect. I was born like this.**

"Like a mutation?"

**Like a _defect_. Natural muscle augmentation isn't good. ** **Less than one percent of the people born with such defects live to be a specific age. They suffer from various health conditions coupled with the defect that shortens their life span.**

Both men read what she had written down and frowned.

"Like what?" Glenn asked before then shaking his head and saying, "Sorry, t-that sounded rude. What I meant was-"

"What exactly is natural muscle augmentation?" Dale suddenly asked. Glenn snapped his mouth shut for a moment and just stood there as she wrote out.

**Myostatin- muscle hypertrophy deficiency.**

She saw no reason to go into any sort of detail as far as her physical augmentation went. Especially since she very much doubted that they would understand.

"What's that?"

**The condition that I was born with.**

"And the other conditions that go with it?" Dale asked.

**Enlarged heart. Heart murmur. Lung issues. Nerve damage. Brittle bones.**

"Do you suffer from any of those?" It was a stupid question, even for Dale. But he still felt the need to confirm anyways.

**Nerve damage.** **Some heart issues, but nothing to be overly worried about. I had those taken care of before.** She motioned with her hand to indicate what she meant and the old man sighed and nodded his head in understanding.

The two men looked like they wanted to ask her something else, but they were suddenly interrupted by the snarling of the undead.

"I think we should go." Glenn said nervously as he stared at the walkers wide eyed.

"I think you may be right." Dale muttered as five walkers broke through the tree line and began to shuffle their way towards them.


	11. Chapter 11

Once they were back at the safety of the farm, Ichigo found herself being seized and literally dragged off by the back of her shirt by Glenn while Dale followed along behind them at a decent, brisk pace. It took them several minutes to find someplace quiet where there wasn't anyone else around but once they did Ichigo found herself crammed into a shed with the two.

"Okay, so we've covered that your insanely, _freakishly_ strong." Glenn finally said and got a disappointed look from Dale before then asking. "If you can do things like what you did with the car... Why are you here?"

**You're acting like I'm a government agent.**

"Aren't you?" Glenn hissed at her. Ichigo rolled her eyes at the accusation before motioning to herself and then writing out.

**Do I look like I'm older than eighteen to you? Being a government agent is something that is notoriously difficult to achieve. And the government takes only the best of the best. All of whom are usually over the age of twenty three.**

"You're weirdly informed about the government." Dale pointed out after reading what she had written three times.

**I should be. I've spent a lot of time with some of them.**

"Okay..." Glenn said with a small frown as he filed that little bit of information away in the back of his mind. "So you aren't an member of the government? I mean, I know that in times of emergencies people who are underage could be drafted to...ya know? _Help_."

**Glenn, I may not be with the government but I _was_ asked to come here to help by a friend that used to work with the government.**

"I thought that you were out here camping." Dale said.

**_I was_. I think the bastard chipped me or something.**

"So he actually came all the way out here to find you?"

**Kisuke is simply that kind of person. Especially if he's bored.**

"Is that normal?"

**I've seen him do much, much _worse_ in the name of boredom. So...yeah. It's definitely normal for him.**

"Okay, so...he tracked you down and asked you to help. Help with what exactly?"

**Keeping you all alive.**

"Isn't that asking a bit much for a fourteen year old kid?" Dale asked as he eyed her previous reply in disbelief.

**Maybe, if I were a normal kid. But I'm not. I grew up being trained in various forms of weapons, hand to hand combat as well as learning some pretty extreme survival skills from various teachers. The whole undead-zombie- thing... Really isn't all that different from a _normal_ day to me.**

Both men looked at her with both with utterly flabbergasted/suspicious looks on their faces. After all, she _had_ to be kidding them about how she was raised. Especially when comparing her average 'normal' day to what was going on in the present with the walkers. She just had too.

And yet...one look at her expression told them that somehow they really didn't really think that she was, no matter how much they might try to deny it.

* * *

After that, Glenn and Dale started trailing her everyday. Sometimes just to keep an eye on her and ask her some more stuff. And sometimes- they did it just to see what she was up too.

Both men managed to wrangle themselves into being able to watch her train with her sword and knives a time or two. On top of some of the martial arts that she'd learned. And Glenn was insanely interested in learning some of the martial arts moves that she practiced away from everyone.

Dale wasn't as interested in learning martial arts as Glenn was. But he was definitely interested in learning strategies, how to lay traps and how to better handle weapons. And all of that was fine. It was something that wouldn't put an excessive amount of stress on his aging body and cause him damage or harm.

However before she agreed to teach either of them anything, she decided to sit them down and go over some other things first. Like teaching them some stuff about medicines, herbal remedies for sickness, pain, fever, infection and a multitude of other things.

After all, at present- she was the only person in the group that knew more than the normal 'take aspirin' sort of knowledge. If things ever got so bad that she would need to leave them, for _any_ reason whatsoever, then at least they would know how to help others if someone needed them too.

It wasn't the absolute best that she could do for them. But it wasn't exactly the worst thing that she could do for them either. _Some_ advanced knowledge was better than none. And it would likely serve them and others well in the future.

Luckily, they seemed to realize this so they didn't bother to complain and took everything that she taught them to heart.

Shane was still trying to get her kicked out of the group. Which wasn't exactly anything new to any of them. However he made the mistake of actually punching her in the face within sight of everyone one evening and Daryl nearly ripped his head off after he tackled the man to the floor.

It took her grabbing the hunter and putting him in a choke hold while simultaneously kicking Shane in the stomach when he tried to lunge at them both- just to separate them before someone got really hurt.

Both men were bruised and a little bit roughed up but otherwise they were fine.

However Ichigo made a point of catching some non poisonous snakes and slipping them into Shane's room when no one was looking and then acted surprised when two of them managed to bite him.

One bit him dangerously close to his manhood- she wasn't going to lie, she _had_ planned for that. But being bitten just shy of it worked too given how sensitive the area was. And the second bite was on his face right over one of his nastier bruises.

He bitched and complained about how much both hurt for nearly a week in a half.


	12. Chapter 12

It was nearly a week or so later before anyone seemed to realize that she, Dale, and Glenn would disappear into thin air. And at least two more days after someone noticed before she was finally ambushed.

Honestly, she hadn't exactly been paying too much attention to her surroundings. _Nothing_ \- human, dead, or anything undead- even registered as any sort of a threat to her. Which was her bad, really. She'd forgotten how completely and utterly weird and infuriating people could be about 'possible' threats to themselves and others.

She should have paid closer attention to who was trailing her when she walked away from the farm. Maybe if she had, she could have steered said person far, far away from one of the practice traps that she had taught Dale how to make.

Instead, she didn't and when she finally heard a very loud and startled, _"Holy-"_ It was pretty much almost too late. _Almost_ , of course was the operative word here.

Luckily for Rick, her reflexes were really sharp. So she managed to not only turn around and quickly move back towards him, but she also managed to grab him before he actually fell into the little pit. He hung there from her grasp by one of his arms and the belt of his pants, twisting his head this way and that and trying to gauge just how much shit he _could_ have been in if he had actually fallen.

The moment that he noticed the sharpened sticks poking up from the bottom of the trap, his face went completely white and he turned his blue eyes to her and merely squeaked out a weak sounding, "Thanks."

Ichigo thinned her lips and pulled him completely up and let him go so that he could scramble away from the trap. He didn't stop moving until his back hit the nearest tree trunk.

She supposed that she would have reacted in much the same manner if not for all her years being _this-is-Sparta_ kicked into damned near bottomless pits, traps, and other crap by Kisuke and a few others.

_"Don't worry Ichigo! It's just for training!"_ She could hear Kisuke say in her head. She snorted and mentally growled, _Training my ass._

Rick kept looking from her to the trap and then all around them in a panic. Probably wondering what other hellish pits she had dug in the immediate area before finally seeming to snap out of it enough to ask her- well, demand mostly. "D-Did you _dig_ that?" His tone was a mite harsher than he probably intended. She let it slide though since he nearly died just now.

She shook her head no. Because honestly she hadn't dug that pit. She'd dug a few others, but not _that_ one. Besides if she had dug it, Rick would know first hand just how malicious her mind could sometimes be. After all, when she did a trap, she went big. _B.I.G._

Her traps came in nasty onion-esque layers with other traps. She didn't just dig pits and add spikes to the bottom- she attached hanging logs, explosives and other crap to her shit.

After all, if she was going to kill someone or something- she wanted to be able to at least hear their dying screams and know that the job was actually done.

She'd even tarred and lit people on fire before. They hadn't been very nice people. And usually she wouldn't wish such a fate on her worst enemy. But some people were just so damned unredeemably _rotten_ that was just one reason why they had died such a particularly gruesome death.

Some people were simply beyond any sort of salvation.

But that was neither here nor there since she had tuned Rick out for several moments and he was currently back up on his feet glaring at her with his hands on his hips.

She blinked at him as his face suddenly appeared in her personal space and then gave him a very awkward smile. He growled at her. Like literally _growled_ at her. Like a frigging dog! And before she could so much as warn him not to do anything- she really wouldn't have hurt him- but the warning was for various other reasons.

One of which was the fact that Glenn and Dale was waiting for her at the appointed 'hiding' spot. Alone. Well, yeah they has each other but her point still stood.

He had her by the hood of her hoody and was dragging her...away?

_What the hell?!_

* * *

She was sulking in her room when Daryl walked in a few hours later when the light was beginning to fade some. "S'up." The man greeted.

She merely held up her note pad and let him read, **Momma Rick decided that I was a bad little girl and then he grounded me. I've been stuck up here for ages. What news of the outside world do you bring?**

Daryl snorted, his lips curved into a small smile and shook his head. "Your ridiculous kid."

**Well, I have to be _something_. I get frigging tired of people jumping all over my ass for thinking ahead and trying to figure out ways to keep everyone alive.**

Daryl frowned at her words, his smile fading before he carefully said. "Ya don't have to worry so much about stuff like that. It's Rick's, T-Dog's, mine and Shane's job to keep everyone alive. It's Dale's, Glenn's, Laurie's, and Andrea's to defend the group when the rest of us are away. Your job- if anything happens to the rest of us is to take Carl and Sophia and Carol and _run_. Ya keep them alive. Understand?"

Ichigo couldn't help but silently scoff at his words. And though he meant her no insult, or any kind of offense...she still took offense. She couldn't help but take offense. She knew that she was young compared to everyone but Carl and Soph. But why did everyone persist in thinking of her as just another kid?

She was a _highly_ trained combat tested individual.

She knew things! She could even do shit that would put the movie creations Rambo and Predator to fucking _shame_! So what did she have to do to get everyone off of her back so that she could finally do her damned job?

Daryl had decided that since she hadn't really responded to his words that the conversation was good and over and was going about putting his weapons away when he was suddenly smacked by the girl's note pad.

Doing a full body jerk, because he hadn't been expecting her to actually throw something at him like that. Much less actually hit him in the side with the damned thing he grabbed it and turned to her and was about to tear into her for throwing her only means of communication at him like a little savage when he caught sight of her sitting there motioning for him to check the pad.

Looking down at it, he had to flip several of the pages just to reach the one that she had last written on and quickly read the words that's he'd written. **Since you and everyone else persist in believing my uses to the group to be so limited, let's play a game. It's called, Never have I ever. Gather everyone up. We'll all play.**

He frowned down at the pad and then looked at her.

"That's a drinking game."

She gave him a feral little smile and then motioned for him to turn the page again. He scowled and did so.

**How else will we bond as a group unless we spill our secrets? Come on big guy, live a little.**

"What's the point?" She motioned for him to flip the page again and he rolled his eyes and did so.

**Bonding, dumbass. Bonding. Now stop asking stupid shit and _go_ get everyone.**

"Ya a bossy little thing when your grounded, huh." She motioned for him to turn the page again and he groaned. Really? How many frigging replies had she scribbled down anyways? He wondered as he turned the page again and scanned the words.

**Do as I say or I'll throw the dresser at you.**

The threat would have been funny to him. If not for the fact that while he was reading it she had actually _picked_ the dresser up over her head and was waiting for him to make a move.

He'd never run from a room so fast in his life.


	13. Chapter 13

Ichigo sat on the floor of the living room as Rick and everyone else entered the room and began the weird 'musical chair's' shuffle to find themselves a comfortable seat. Glenn sat himself down next to her while Dale grabbed the most comfortable chair in the room, because of his old and aching bones and made himself nice and comfy.

Not caring a whit that several of the others shot him displeased looks because he had the comfier chair in the room while he smiled in amusement at their sour expressions.

It took everyone nearly ten minutes to shuffle around before finally settling down, but once they were all there, Rick finally spoke up. "Okay, is everyone here?"

Everyone looked around the room and quickly took stock of who was there and...well, even the kids were there for now so _literally_ everyone in the group was there. "Alright. Now the entire purpose of this gathering is for... _bonding_ as a group. And since this was her idea, and bonding as a group isn't such a terrible idea then we're going to let her lay down some ground rules before we get started." He turned to her and nodded his head as she handed Glenn her note pad to read aloud for her.

He took it and scanned the page and then nodded his head and said, "The game we're playing is called Never have I ever. However there will be no drinking...unless it's water, milk or juice." There were several chuckles and snickers from everyone.

"I feel that I must stress this before we really get started. These are the rules and there will be _no_ exceptions for anyone." Rick and the others looked a mixture of nervous, and interested. "If you decide to play this game with the rest of us, then you will follow these simple rules. Rule one, _no_ judgement whatsoever. For all intents and purposes of this game- we are to be like Canada. _Neutral_. Understand?"

"There will be no judgement of harsh realities, no judgement of terrible past deeds, no thinking that you have any right to hold something over one of our heads for having secrets. Anyone who can't abide by this is to leave the room at once and can be filled in later by someone from the group. Do you agree?"

"I think that's a very reasonable rule." Rick said with a smile, an impressed look on his face at how well she had thought out the first rule as he looked around. There were several others who wore similar impressed looks on their faces as Rick went on to say, "And you're right. Anyone that can't agree with rule one needs to leave now."

No one left the room.

Ichigo sighed, and reached out and took the note pad from Glenn for a second and wrote down.

**No one is being purposely excluded from the game by being asked to leave. You've done nothing wrong. However there may be things that are revealed later on that could adversely affect the group and how it functions. That is the purpose of rule one.**

**Those who can't do as you've agreed, think long and hard about the ramifications and ask yourself, is the life of myself and my group members worth placing in danger. Anyone that can easily place another in danger later because of the information that you may learn tonight shouldn't play this game.**

Glenn read her words aloud to the others once she handed the note pad back to him. And just like that Andrea was gone.

"Okay, moving on to rule two. No _lying_. No exceptions. If there's something so bad that you don't want to speak about it for whatever reason, just say 'pass'. The others will respect your wishes and the game will continue."

"Alright? Anymore rules?"

Ichigo shook her head no and looked around the room, careful to keep her expression blank and unreadable as someone asked who was going to start the game off. Ichigo pointed to Rick since he was the leader.

"Alright," Rick said and took a moment to think before saying, "Never have I ever...not upheld the-"

"I have a quick question," Dale said suddenly, interrupting Rick. "How do we tell who's done what?"

Ichigo rolled her eyes in exasperation and put her hand up over her head and then touched a finger to her nose and then dropped her hand back to her lap. "Alright, so you either put your hand up or touch your nose?" She nodded her head and Dale let Rick continue his previous question.

"Never have I ever; _not_ been a defendant."

Shane, and Ichigo both put their hands up. Shane, Rick knew about having a little bit of a record as a late teen. However it was interesting to him to find out that Ichigo had been arrested at some point. She simply didn't seem like the type to get into trouble to him.

Sure he knew that she had a little bit of a temper, but she tended to steer clear of using it any.

"Your ears are red." Daryl commented from across the room. Ichigo visibly twitched and sent the man a small glare and then moved to cover her ears with her hair.

"So you've been arrested?" Glenn asked her.

She scribbled down, **Just once.**

"What happened?" Rick asked curiously.

**I was ten. And my dad had to go make a house call for one of his patients. I and my two sisters were in the back of the car because he'd just picked us up from school when this thug came out of no where with a ball bat and began to hit the car windows trying to break them.**

**My sisters were both screaming and crying, I was starting to freak out- because the guy was either trying to steal the car or he was mentally unstable. And I decided to try and put the car in gear and see if I could get us away from him.**

**So I got into the driver's seat and cranked the car and started to put it into drive when the bat hit the window just right and sent glass flying into my face. I accidentally put the car into reverse and ran the guy over when he suddenly moved to the rear of the car.**

Someone let out a hysterical sounding giggle while Rick and Daryl both snorted in amusement before someone wheezed out, "You _ran_ him over?"

**I did. And he pressed charges... I don't recall my dad ever looking both so utterly proud and flabbergasted before. After I got out of jail he took me around a bunch of neighborhoods and introduced me as the thug mower-downer to a bunch of people.**

Someone actually let out a breathless sounding laugh and Ichigo scrunched up her nose as everyone slowly settled down and then someone else asked a question.

"Never have I ever...hit someone?" Ichigo, Rick, Shane, Laurie, Daryl, and T-Dog all put their hands up. After which Dale asked her,

"Was it on purpose?"

**Yes. And it happened pretty frequently too.**

"Hn. Alright, Laurie, you're up."

"Okay. Never have I ever...been dead and came back to life." Both Ichigo and Rick put their hands up and eyed each other for a second in curiosity before Shane asked his question. Laurie looked anxious and put her hand up as Rick stared at her with a frown.

Ichigo huffed quietly and felt her heart ache in sympathy for the woman. Shane's question had been low and had been specifically meant to single her out. _Bastard_. She thought darkly. She should have included a rule where specific topics could be avoided.

She'd owe the woman an apology later for not thinking of it in the first place. Especially since there was no telling how the information would affect Rick and Carl's relationship with her.

Rick however, was doing an impressive job of remaining neutral for the moment. So...maybe he wasn't terribly upset about finding out that his wife had slept with Shane. But that might change if she was currently pregnant with his child.

Hanging her head a little bit so that she could rub at the area between her eyes in an effort to stave off a headache she nearly missed T-Dog saying, "Never have I ever, saved a life professionally."

Ichigo, Rick, and Shane put their hands up.

"How did you save a life?" Shane asked her in a slightly snide tone.

**I'll pass on the explanation for now due to how long the story is. Keep going.**

"Never have I ever...got a college degree?" Glenn asked.

Ichigo, Rick, Shane, and Dale put their hands up.

"You went to college? At your age?" Daryl asked her in a slightly disbelieving tone.

**Yes. I took classes while I went to high school. I graduated almost three months before I came out here for my camping trip.**

"Did you manage to get any degrees?"

**Yes. I have two doctorates. One in medical chemistry and another in biology. And I have at least two PHD's.**

"Damn girl, you must have really busted your ass to get those." T-Dog said in an appreciative tone.

_**I did.** _

"How long did it take you?"

**I started taking classes when I was in my second year of Junior High. I skipped breaks to attend night school classes and community college classes for extra credits and stuff. I got my second degree when I was... twelve? Thirteen?**

"And your fourteen now-"

**Fifteen. My birthday has already come and gone.**

Everyone looked at her, all of them looking slightly startled by the little tid-bit of information before Glenn said lamely, "Happy belated birthday." She thinned her lips a little bit as she looked at him but didn't bother to thank him. Especially since Rick was looking at her strangely and she got the weird feeling that the game was going to take a serious turn soon.

Another round of questions was asked, none of which she felt any need to answer since they had nothing to do with her. However as soon as everyone had taken their turn asking things, she found herself being stared down by Rick as he said, Never have I ever been bit by a walker and _lived_."

Ichigo glared at him. Like literally glared at him. And if looks could kill the former sheriff was pretty sure that he'd be dead ten times over. She had such a look of utter rage on her pretty young face that in all honesty- if he wasn't so used to staring people down- he might have actually been afraid of her.

Regardless of how...pissed she looked, she still raised her hand. Even if it was reluctantly.


	14. Chapter 14

"How?" Rick asked curiously as the semi playful atmosphere in the room shifted to something else entirely. Everyone's eyes were on her, making her feel uncomfortable as she hesitantly wrote.

**Genetics. I have a...mutation in my genetics that allows me to go without getting infected- after being bitten or scratched- enough prevent me from dying and changing.**

"Okay," Rick said, shifting in his seat a little bit before then asking. "So you have a natural immunity..." He seemed like he was mulling the newest bit of information over as Glenn asked her.

"So it's not something that can be used to make us immune?"

Ichigo gave the Korean man a wary look before then writing out, **Actually it can. I'm not the _only_ person who is immune.** **There are others.** Glenn automatically perked up, his expression hopeful. Rick looked more than a little bit hopeful too as the girl showed the others in the room her note pad and then started to write again. **My godfather. And younger sisters as well as a few select others have been inoculated against whatever it the fuck this...is.**

"It's a virus," Daryl supplied helpfully. "Some weird, fucked up version of Malaria or something."

**That helps. No wonder everyone is suseptible to it.**

"So if your immune, and can somehow inoculate others- why would you keep something like that a secret from us?" Lorie finally asked. "I mean for god's sake, we have children in our group!"

**Because when people are desperate- they do _very_ stupid shit. Do you honestly think that you're the first group that I've come across? You can't possibly be that damned naive.**

"What does that have to do with anything?" Dale asked.

**_Everything._ The world has collapsed. Civilization as we know it is gone. People have suffered monumental losses. Physically. And emotionally. To many of them, those losses have caused mental breaks. Psychotic breaks.**

**They have become threats to not only themselves but _others_. Inoculating the wrong person- someone who is deemed a threat- can be _bad_. It could lead to the deaths of hundreds- maybe more.**

"So what? You sit back and try to decide who lives and who dies?" Shane demanded angrily. "Who the hell give's you the right?" He snarled at her as he jumped out of his seat and started pacing.

**I don't like it either. Really I don't. But I have to be very careful here. The current amount of medicine that I have ready...is very little.**

**And there are other things that factor into the choice. Things like, age, physical health, illnesses, potential chances for survival after being inoculated and so on- the medicine would be wasted on anyone who is likely to immediately die after being inoculated with it.**

"I get it." Rick said grimly after a moment or so of careful thought. "You have to be careful with who you choose. Not only because of the lack of medicine, but because of everything else mentioned too. It's about what's best for the continued survival of the many."

"What?" Shane demanded as he twisted his head around to glare at Rick. His expression outraged.

"The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few." Carol muttered, looking down at her lap.

"W-Well, so what?" Lourie said. "We have kids! Small kids! I can understand the need to be cautious in who you decide to save- especially when the meds are so little but-"

**I've already inoculated the kids. It was _literally_ the first thing that I did outside of looking for Sophia.**

Lourie's jaw dropped open and Carol's eyes rose from her lap to look at the note pad that Ichigo was holding up for them to see.

"How?" Rick blurted out before then shaking his head and asking, _"When?"_

**Sophia had been bitten and was in the first stages of being infected when I found her.** Carol's hands flew up to cover her mouth in shock and her eyes started to tear up at how close she had actually come to losing her daughter. **She was unconscious. So she wouldn't have noticed anything that I did. And Carl...well, the needle that I used to inoculate him was barely any longer than a thumb tack. It was fast, and he only noticed a small sting. He thought that he'd been bitten by a bug.**

"Have you...inoculated anyone else in the group?" Darly asked.

**Not yet. But I do have some idea's as to _who_ to give the medicine to. But I refuse to say anything else about it since it will only cause dissension in the ranks.**

Rick looked like he wanted to say something else, but seemed to think better of it since he merely nodded his head. Whereas Shane, only seemed to become more enraged and the moment that she decided to end the conversation in a manner that was not to his satisfaction- he had his gun drawn and before Rick or anyone could even grab him- he was in Ichigo's personal space and cracked her across the face with it.

She hit the floor on her side, as a series of shouts sounded in the room, her face smarting viciously from the blow that she had allowed Shane to give her.

Turning her head ever so slightly to the side, she saw Shane point his gun at her head and narrowed her eyes at him as she spat out some blood on the floor and then slowly pushed herself back up into a sitting position. Rick have his gun in his hand, however seemed hesitant to point it at his friend.

Glenn was frozen next to her in fear. Probably because he didn't know what he could do to help her. And Daryl had his bow up and was pointing it at Shane, an arrow notched and his finger on the trigger. His expression grim as he growled out, "Drop the gun."

"Fuck you, Daryl. She's going to hand over the meds and we're all using it."

Ichigo gave Shane an unimpressed look and flipped him a bird. She would rather take a bullet to the brain than give this asshole _anything_.


End file.
